tango congo

Across the Atlantic, spreading over the Caribbean, up the Gulf and the Mississippi, penetrating the skin and retina at the slightest touch to settle, finally, in the head, the heart, legs, waist and soul of a continent.

This month marks the 143 anniversary of the death of Manuel Saumell, important Cuban composer and pianist, the Father of cuban quadrilles.Louis Moreau Gottshalk, who died in Rio de Janeiro, was one of the most important American musicians of his time and a pioneer in America in the use and mix of popular music in classical music.They had met in 1854 in Havana, on the first trip of the three that were made to Cuba, to seal a friendship that led to the first documented musical exchange between the music of both countries.A mid-nineteenth century Havana and New Orleans were the cities of greater cultural exchange and trade in the area. Their sugar industries were very connected to each other and Gottschalk, who had just arrived from his European training full of recommendations to the authorities of the island, made ​​his entrance to a city that boasted of receiving the best shows coming out of European borders.

It is a pleasure to hear this Juan Carlos Cáceres´s piece, Tango Negro, let alone know of this Argentine cosmopolitan yet deeply rooted to their pilings River Plate. On its website are the words of the musician Sergio Makaroff, that define the essence of his music, which is his life.

JUAN CARLOS CÁCERES Possessed by a strong magnetic tellurism, Cáceres was always to be found within the limits of the hurricane’s eye.

He arrived in Paris – was it mere chance? – in May 1968. He was not looking for a beach under the cobblestones, but he found one. In Buenos Aires, where he was born, he had been the factotum of the Existentialist Scene. Student of Fine Arts during day time, trombonist at night, agitator, a force of nature, he became the attraction of the mythic Cueva de Passarato, a jazz club and epicentre of revolutionary trends. There converged beatniks, upper class chicks and future Maoist guerrillas, often combined in a single individual.